I need to start off by saying a huge thank you for all of the emails and blog comments I've received. It meant so much to hear from everyone.

Today was a crazy fast day. We started off from our campsite on the side of the hill (and yes, it did rain again last night). From the get go, Kyle was a man on a mission. The three of us again ran together to check point 1, just at a much faster pace than before. Most of the terrain was pretty runnable; you just had to pay attention to where your feet were landing.

After checkpoint 1, our running party slowly started to break off. Kyle continue to push it up front, with Adam not too far back. I was rolling in third, trying like crazy to keep up the pace. At checkpoint 2 I checked my watch, and could not believe how quickly we had gotten there.

Right after checkpoint 2, we had to duck through this short tunnel. I didn't know it then, but I ended up tearing my bag. Luckily nothing fell out, but there will be some repair work tonight. This is the section where I switched from complaining about cold, to complaining about heat. Based on how hot it is today, I can't believe how much the weather has swung.

After checkpoint 3, we ended up going through a vineyard. Sadly they were not sharing any of their wine with us. We ended up finishing the 26+ miles fairly close together. Kyle crushed it running a 3:20 today, with Adam not too far behind (3:27ish). I think I finished up around 3:30ish. It sets up tomorrow's 50 miles for an incredibly tight finish, with Adam and Kyle only 7 or 8 minutes apart. I think I'm about 30 minutes back from Kyle, so still hoping to finish the week with an American sweep.

Time to go eat some more food. Hopefully, I'll check in tomorrow after the 50. Until then!

We finally had a good night of sleep hanging in the little village. I feel spoiled that it was warm enough that I didn't even need to get in my sleeping bag!

Today started off with a fair bit of cloud coverage, with rumors of possible rain. I spent the first half of the day running with Adam and Kyle. The first few sections were incredibly technical with lots of football sized rocks to stumble over. There were a lot of flags that were pretty tricky to spot, so it was a huge help to be running in a group. We stayed as a pack until we hit a paved road. I was feeling pretty good at this point, so I decided to try and really push it for the second half of the race.

The back half was filled with a some more technical stretches, and long dirt roads that went up and down the side of the mountain range. At one point I may or may not have been caught in a camel stampede. With about 4 miles to go, the rain started coming down (it was only about 45-50 degrees plus wind chill, so the rain was ok as long as you were moving. With about 1 or 2 miles left, the skies really opened up, and the wind picked up like crazy. I made the decision to stay in a t-shirt and shorts knowing I was really close to camp. I wanted to keep as much gear dry as possible for a very cold wet afternoon at camp. The rain ended up pouring for the next 5 or so hours, making for a really rough day for a lot of the racers.

I ended up finishing the day in first (first ever stage win at one of these events!) I was about 10 minutes ahead of Adam and Kyle, which puts me about 20 minutes behind them for the week. Iso is also right behind me too, so we should be in for a really exciting last few days of racing.

I wanted to say a thank you to all the people who have written me emails and blog comments. I really appreciate all of the support I'm getting out here. Time to go to bed (it's about 8pm).

Until tomorrow!

Stage 2 started with us climbing up to the highest point on the course (climbing from 6000 feet-ish to 9000 feet-ish). This meant climbing through all of the 'fresh pow'from the day before. This climb was through a forest, and definitely had a Vermont feel to it. To make things more exciting, another snow storm rolled through right as we were about to start. Needless to say, I put on every piece of gear I had to avoid a repeat of yesterday.

After our long climb, we then had a long dirt road down the back of the mountain, through the canyons (by far the most fun section to this point). This was when the scenery switched from Vermont to Colorado. This is where I fell back from the two lead Americans (Kyle and Adam). Checkpoint 2 was pretty much at the bottom of the canyon. From then on we were on rolling roads through the desert (the Arizona section.) So we went from freezing to about 80 degrees over the course of 25 miles. I ended up finishing in 3rd about 10 minutes back from the two American guys. So for at least one stage we had an all American top 3!

Tonight we are camping in a local village. Each tent has our own room in the village. I moved into my room where I found a 7 year old boy watching cartoons. So yeah, my post race recovery was spent watching Garfield in Chinese. It's much warmer down here, so I'm hoping to get my first warm, good night sleep of the week.

That's it for today.

The last 72 hours have been a chaotic scramble trying to get everything together and to the other side of the world.